Magic, memory and Morrowind: getting to the crux of it with 2023’s expansion

Developer ZeniMax Online Studios

Publisher Bethesda Softworks

Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series

Origin US

Release June 5 (PC), June 20 (consoles)

The Telvanni Peninsula functions as your base of operations in Necrom. “We picked it because it’s Morrowind,” Lambert says. “It’s a chance for us to do something a little different, but still bringing that nostalgic feeling”

Some multiplayer games, it’s fair to say, can take a while to find their feet – and that’s certainly true of The Elder Scrolls Online. By creative director Rich Lambert’s own admission, the MMO’s launch in 2014 “wasn’t fantastic”, with the game initially experiencing something of an identity crisis. “We didn’t really know the game we were trying to make,” he reflects today. “We were trying to straddle that line between Elder Scrolls and MMO, and I don’t think we did either particularly well.”

Fast-forward to 2023, and The Elder Scrolls Online is about to receive its seventh chapter update, introducing over 30 hours of quests and a whole new playable class. Since 2015, the team at ZeniMax Online Studios has added about 40 hours’ worth of new content to the game each year, and this diligent approach has helped foster a large, committed playerbase. The Elder Scrolls Online now boasts a total of 22 million player accounts, with an additional two million new players joining the game last year alone – and has recently received critical recognition, too, in the form of a BAFTA Games nomination for best Evolving Game. “The first two years of launch were about learning and deciding what kind of game we wanted to make,” Lambert explains. “And since then, it has been about continually refining that – first and foremost, it is an Elder Scrolls game – but also refining how we tell stories.”